Naked
by BonnieD
Summary: Seth said Ryan wants to see Lindsay naked. You know it's true.


"Naked"

Rated R

Seth's line in the Chrismukkah episode about Ryan wanting to see Lindsay naked kept playing in my head until it crystallized into this…

"_He wants to see her naked. Wants to see her naked. Naked… Naked…"_

Ryan let out a cry of frustration and pulled the pillow over his head trying to shut out Seth's insistent voice. Those words had been echoing in his mind ever since Seth said them that afternoon because it was true, so goddamn, fucking true.

Lindsay's bright, inquisitive eyes; her shiny, shampoo-commercial hair and her smooth, blemish-free skin were haunting him. And those attributes only made him want to see more of her. A hell of a lot more.

After a moment he threw the pillow across the room, kicked the covers off his legs and climbed out of bed. He was getting no sleep tonight. He might as well go to the kitchen and dig up a snack.

As he padded barefoot across the patio to the house, he breathed in a lungful of the fresh, night air and wished he were breathing in cigarette smoke. If he still had a pack, he'd go out behind the pool house and chain smoke until it was gone instead of raiding the Cohens' fridge and stuffing his face.

He entered the kitchen, dimly lit by a nightlight, and opened the refrigerator door. It was chockfull as always but nothing inside it looked good.

"Santa?" The overhead light flipped on and Seth shuffled into the room in his slippers. His hair stuck out in wild curls and he was rubbing at bleary eyes and yawning.

Ryan gave him a look then went back to searching for the perfect 2 a.m. snack.

"Oh. The Grinch," Seth quipped, leaning against the counter and watching Ryan rummage. "Didn't you get enough eggnog and latkes at Lindsay's?"

"I hate eggnog and the latkes looked a little scary," Ryan said.

"That's because they were made by gentile hands," Seth explained. "Marissa and Summer haven't got the touch. You should taste my Nana's latkes."

Ryan grabbed a juice container at random and slammed the fridge door.

"Whoa! Someone's feeling a little tense. What's up?"

"Nothing."

"No. I know nothing and that's not nothing. That's Ryan's 'something' face." He waited and when Ryan remained silent, opening the juice and taking a swig, Seth continued, "It couldn't be _girl _trouble could it?"

"It's just…." Ryan sighed and gave up. Seth would push until he gave him what he wanted. "Lindsay. She runs hot and cold and that's even before all this mess today. I don't know if we're on or off right now. This afternoon she told me that she didn't want to see me but tonight we talked for hours again and everything seemed cool."

"So you think it's on," Seth said. He rubbed his chin musingly. "Did she give you a goodnight kiss."

"On the cheek," Ryan said, wrinkling his nose a little. He offered the juice bottle to Seth, who shook his head.

"Friendly but undemonstrative. Hm. It's a mixed message. She's saying, 'I'm interested but wary.' Your task, Ryan, is to woo her like a wild forest creature which must be tamed and taught to trust. You're not the conquering hunter, no, but the cajoling captor, who seduces the timid maiden into his bed."

"Seth, have you been reading your mom's romance novels again?" Ryan capped the juice and put it back in the fridge. "You do realize this is your aunt you're talking about. The aunt you went on a date with."

"Dude, stop it! You're freaking me out." Seth waved his hands in front of his face. "Don't even say that."

Ryan clapped his hand on Seth's shoulder. "Well, thanks for the advice, but we're done discussing this now. Want to play a game of Grand Theft?"

Seth shrugged. "Sure." He followed Ryan from the kitchen. "Hey, I want it noted that I was the perfect friend tonight. I didn't talk about me and Summer once."

"It's noted," Ryan said.

"Do you think Santa will give us a miss if we're up stealing cars when he gets here?" Seth said.

"Probably."

Ryan didn't see Lindsay again through the long Christmas holiday, but he thought about her all the time.

All the time.

"_He wants to see her naked."_

He imagined her in his bed when he was having 'alone time' during the day and he even dreamed about her at night sometimes, esoteric and fragmented dreams with a lot of thrashing naked limbs and long red hair coiling around his throat choking him.

He wasn't sure when Lindsay had moved from nice friendly girl to sex fantasy in his mind but it was somewhere around the time they had kissed and she had surprised him. His initial impression of her had been that she was interesting, challenging, annoying and kind of cute. She had the sassiness of Summer but with an intellectual edge that fascinated him.

He decided he could have a new and different kind of relationship with her than he had experienced with other girls, one that wasn't based on drama and hysterics and vulnerable neediness. Lindsay talked about interesting things. She had opinions on lots of different subjects. When he was with her he could have actual conversations and arguments about something other than relationships and gossip. But he hadn't expected much when they finally kissed. He thought it would be nice but not too passionate.

He was wrong.

The girl could kiss. With passion.

And that had been only a few kisses that night after the dance.

Before Ryan got a chance to find out how far it would go their fledgling relationship stalled.

Caleb happened and Chrismukkah happened and a week passed but still Lindsay wasn't calling.

When Ryan realized that he was going to be counting down to midnight on New Year's Eve with Seth and a bottle of non-alcoholic sparkling juice, he almost broke and called her but stopped himself mid-dial. Seth might be flaky but he was right about the wooing thing. Lindsay had made it clear that this whatever-it-was between them was going to be on her terms. She needed time to think. He was going to give her time to think if it killed him.

Ryan couldn't believe how excited he was for school to start that Monday after the painfully long vacation.

He saw Lindsay once, far down the hall, before classes began, but he didn't have a chance to talk to her until Physics.

"Hey," he said, hoisting his backpack onto the table and digging for his textbook.

"Hey," she said, barely looking up at him before turning her attention back to the paper she was writing.

He stared at the top of her head, the shimmering, coppery hair drawn back into a neat ponytail at the nape of her neck. She turned her head and her hair fanned out over one shoulder. The light caught on the accents of red and gold like the shifting colors in a fire. Ryan wanted to touch it so badly his hand almost crept out of its own volition, but instead he sat down and opened his text.

"So. How was your vacation."

"Good, good," she said without glancing up. "Yours?"

"Okay."

Lindsay scribbled furiously and Ryan stared sightlessly at his Physics book. They stayed that way until class began.

The rest of the week was even worse.

Not only were they not touching and kissing or doing any of the things he wanted to do to her, but now they had lost the ability to communicate at all. He really missed talking to Lindsay. Their easy banter had dried up and blown away.

Some days Ryan took the initiative, offering conversational gambits engineered to get her going, but she kept her answers to monosyllables. On the days he was quiet leaving her to start the conversation, they might go the whole period without exchanging more words than was necessary to complete their lab assignment.

On Friday he saw her in the student lounge sitting on a couch, coffee in one hand, book on her lap and those cute little glasses sliding halfway down her nose. She was dressed in conservative slacks and a gray turtleneck and Ryan couldn't take his eyes off of her.

"_He wants to see her naked."_

Across the room, he sipped his own coffee as he watched her study then he began to picture those long limbs and that fair skin not covered by yards of fabric. He fantasized her in an old-fashioned corset that pushed her cleavage up into two creamy swells of flesh, her nipples barely covered by a frill of lace. Then he added a white satiny thong below. Her slender legs would go on forever, stretching lean and long and….

"Hey, Ryan." A book slammed down on the table next to him and Ryan jumped and spilled his coffee.

"Shit!" The hot liquid burned his thigh through the fabric of his pants.

"Sorry." Seth started to pat at him with a handful of napkins and Ryan snatched them out of his hand.

"That's okay. I've got it," he said, mopping at the spreading stain.

"Wow. You were off in your own world," Seth said. He looked at the open book in front of Ryan on the table. "You really must like History," his eyes slid across the room and he smirked, "or Lindsay."

"Yeah, well, she doesn't like me," Ryan muttered grumpily, throwing the used napkins on the table.

"And you call yourself a ladies' man," Seth scolded. "Come on, Ryan, all the signs are there. She can't look at you, won't hardly speak to you, she's head over heels! You just have to go get her."

"What universe are you from?" Ryan said, looking at Seth with a frown. "A girl rejects you and your immediate reaction is to start stalking her?"

"Talk to her, man. 'S all I'm sayin'." Seth made shooing motions with his hands. "Go. Now. Talk. Tell her what's on your mind."

Ryan rose unwillingly to his feet and took two steps in Lindsay's direction.

"Oh and Ryan?"

"Yeah?"

"Did you notice I didn't mention Summer the whole time we talked? I think I'm healing."

"Noted."

Ryan walked over to Lindsay and sat down on the couch beside her. "Hi."

"Oh. Hi." She quickly pulled her glasses from her face. One side snagged in her hair and she had to tug to get it loose. Strands of hair came with it and she had to stop and untangle the hairs from the arm of the glasses. "Um, what's up."

"We need to talk. Things have been really weird ever since we got back to school. I thought everything was cool Christmas Eve and I don't know what changed but I miss talking to you and I don't know why we can't go back to that because it was really nice and I don't like things being so awkward now so what do you think?" He drew in a deep breath.

Lindsay blinked. "About?"

"About just being friends. Can't we be friends again?"

"We're friends," she said.

"Friends who actually talk."

She bit her bottom lip and he thought it wasn't a good sign. She was going to say something he didn't want to hear.

"Look, Ryan. Things are really weird for me right now with finding out about my dad and him being part of your family. Like I said before. I don't think it would be good for us to hang out together."

"I'm not asking you to date me just say more than two words when we talk."

Lindsay frowned. "I don't know if I can do that. Not after we…. I told you I didn't want to start a relationship because it would be too weird if it didn't work out and now, see? Exactly what I said would happen."

"But…."

"I'm sorry. All we can be is lab partners. Anything else is too … complicated." She shut her book, rose and brushed past his legs as she left the room.

Ryan sat there long after he had watched her walk away. He thought he might go over to Caleb Nichols' mansion after school and shoot him or cut the brakelines on his car or at least punch his ugly, horny-old-man face. This was all his fault.

That night Ryan did something he hadn't done in a long time. He brooded. He swiped a beer from the fridge, Kirsten be damned, then locked himself in the pool house and lay on his bed with headphones on and music blasting his eardrums. He stared up at the ceiling and sipped his beer.

Then he closed his eyes, listened to the music and sipped beer.

For variation he rolled over on his side, stared at the wall and sipped beer.

Pretty soon his beer was gone so he went into the house and got another.

Three beers and two hours later, Ryan got up. He was momentarily unsteady on his feet because he wasn't used to drinking that much anymore. He went outside and lifted his face to smell the rain on the air. It wasn't quite there yet but it was coming. He started to walk.

He walked down the Cohens' drive and the road that led to the gate that supposedly kept this neighborhood safe. Then he walked down the street, turned left and walked five blocks. A few drops of rain misted his bare arms and the breeze blew across them making him shiver. He wished he'd thought of slipping on a jacket or even a long sleeved shirt before he went out, but he didn't turn back. He kept walking.

His shoes slapped against the sidewalk and his legs moved with a rhythmic brush of denim on denim. It was hypnotic and Ryan felt he was rising outside of himself and watching this man on a mission marching through Newport.

It began to rain in earnest, the delicate drops turning fatter and spattering on the sidewalk then multiplying as the clouds released. Sheets of rain pelted Ryan. He closed his eyes and felt it stinging his face. It felt good, refreshing and wet, and he smiled.

He walked a couple of miles before he reached Lindsay's house. Lights were on inside. It wasn't really that late yet. Ryan walked up the steps and stood ringing the bell until she opened the door.

"Ryan? What are you doing?" She was dressed for bed in pajama pants and a tank top, no Freud slippers on her bare feet, hair loose and flowing. Her eyes were wide and surprised. She opened the door and stepped outside.

"My god, you're soaking! Where did you walk from?"

Ryan felt the rain dripping off his hair and down his face. He felt his T-shirt plastered to his chest, stomach and back, and his wet jeans chafing his legs. Even his shoes were squishy with water.

Lindsay was backlit by the light from indoors and it made her hair glow and shine.

"I don't want to be your lab partner," Ryan said.

She frowned incredulously. "You came here to tell me…."

He cut her off with a kiss. Stepping into her personal space, he grabbed her and held her tight in his arms. He covered her mouth with his and showed her what he _did_ want to be. When he finally stopped kissing her, she gasped for air and made a little 'Oh' sound.

He plunged his hands into her hair, clutching great fistfuls of it and pulled her into another kiss; Lips moving against hers, tongue darting into her mouth to touch hers.

Lindsay kissed back, her hands trying to touch him everywhere at once, roaming up and down his back, feeling his shoulders, his neck, his hair. She pressed her body against his ignoring his wet clothes and getting just as close to him as she could.

Ryan stepped away from her then. He tugged on her hand and pulled her from the shelter of her porch and into the drenching rain.

"Agh! What are you doing?" She shrieked and laughed and resisted his grip. Rain was already washing down her face and turning her golden-red hair dark. The thin cotton fabric of her pajamas was quickly soaking through.

"I want to see you naked," he told her. His voice sounded raspy and deep and hungry even to his own ears. He didn't mean to make it sound so pornographic. He was just telling her the truth.

"What?" she said, managing to sound shocked, amused and titillated all at the same time.

"Naked," he repeated. He ran a hand down her chest to her breast, molding the wet fabric to it like papier mache. The rosy circle of her aureole showed through the translucent material and he circled it with his thumb then touched the peak of her nipple lightly. She gasped and twitched. Then he did the same thing to her other breast.

He moved his hand down farther, over her rib cage, the plane of her belly and her waist. He pressed her pajama bottoms against the swell of her mons and watched as a dark, triangular shadow appeared there. He stroked it gently then drew his hand away and stood back to simply look at her.

Rain was still coursing down their bodies as Ryan lifted his gaze from her sex to her face. He cupped her jaw in his left hand and traced the curve of her lips with his thumb. Her eyelashes were spiky clumps that glistened with raindrops and she blinked to shed the water away from her eyes. Rain dripped from her face and his hand and every part of both of them.

"Beautiful," he murmured, leaning in to kiss her again.

Lindsay's mouth moved under his and he could have sworn she was whispering his name. He pulled her into his arms and held her close and kissed her, kissed her and kissed her.

"Lindsay?" Mrs. Gardener's voice made Ryan startle and step back. In unison he and Lindsay's head's swiveled toward the front door. "What are you…? Is that Ryan?"

"Yes, Mrs. Gardener." Ryan's voice cracked.

"You two should come in from the rain." Lindsay's mom sounded as embarrassed as Ryan felt.

"Yeah, Mom. Be right in," Lindsay called. She looked at Ryan and started laughing.

Mrs. Gardener closed the door and Ryan grinned at Lindsay. Then he began to laugh too.

Lindsay grabbed him by the straggling hair on either side of his face and, still giggling, leaned in to plant a kiss on his mouth. "You are so crazy," she said.

"Insanity is defined as repetition of an action with expectation of different results, but if I get different results with my action then I'm proven to be sane. So I guess," he concluded, "that you determine whether I'm crazy or not. Are you going to brush me off again tomorrow?"

"Too late for that. I already tried it – twice with the same result. You keep coming back." She wrapped her arms around his waist and butted her pelvis up against his. "And I am not crazy."

"Glad to hear it," he said.

"Besides," she added with a smile, "it's too late to back off now. You've seen me naked."

He pulled her head to his chest and buried his face in her soggy, matted hair and the rain poured over them like a baptism.

END

10


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